Summer's Gone

Katy & Brady

Welcome to fall.

Life has been busy on the farm the past couple months, which explains the gap between posts.  Here's a recap of all the activity on the farm since then.

Fence Project

Thanks to cooler weather and a lot of help from our buddy Timbo the fence project has resumed.  Brady is happy to report that all the posts are in the ground.  Only the fence wire and barbed wire remain to be done before winter arrives.

Bees
Brady did a quick "hive tipping" check and found several light ones in the bee-yard.  Those colonies probably won't have enough honey to survive the winter.  Within the next few weeks we'll consolidate colonies and start winterizing the remaining hives.

Since this is our first year beekeeping together we don't have any surplus honey for sale, although we probably will have enough for a few Christmas presents.  :)

It's the last of the goldenrod flow and while the bees are having the best time of their tiny bee lives we're suffering daily with the pains of allergy sinus pressure.  

Chickens

The girls have recovered after their big win at the county fair. We only have eight good layers left after the raccoon attack.  Brady trapped two (well-fed) intruders beside the barn and since then no more poachers.  But egg production dropped dramatically in the wake of the attacks and the onset of cooler weather.  We sell out as soon as we put out the for sale sign.  If anyone has any young Golden Comet hens for sale please contact us at smithscreekfarm@gmail.com.

Business Cards

We now have cards and frig magnets!  Next up - egg carton stickers!

Knitting

Now taking orders for Christmas presents and other specialty items.  Get your order in early to ensure delivery before the holidays!

The Band

Massie Creek Bluegrass Band will soon be coming to an area near you.  More information (and website) coming soon.

What's Blooming

Goldenrod and some late season roses in the back yard

Coming Up

Clean coops, consolidate bee hives, fencing, band practice

Best In Show

The girls won BEST IN SHOW at the Greene County Fair!!!!  And their white eggs won second place!  Tonight they celebrated with an extra scoop of corn.  :)  We're so proud of our girls!

My knitting won 2nd place (not bad for a lost and UFO project).  Brady's amazing sky picture was definitely the best of the bunch on display - which was by far the most populated competition - and we learned a lot about showing our honey products (creamed honey is the way to go).  Next year we'll definitely overwhelm the rest of the competition!

Hot Chicks

It's just plain hot.

Today's high temp hovered around 100º with a heat index of 115º.  Let me repeat that ... a heat index of 115º. Outdoor chores have been limited to essential tasks until the weather becomes a bit more bearable.

The GC Rangers have started paying for their keep.  Egg sales at Smith's Creek Farm now pay for their feed and we chip in for the corn and bedding.  We have a few regular customers but sales have dropped off this week (probably due to the heat).

Sadly, we've lost some of our GC Ranger flock to predators on the farm.  Brady thinks raccoons and/or skunks are the culprits - a raccoon met his fate on the road in front of the house, and last week a skunk met his under the wheels of Brady's Silverado.  The heat has also been a negative factor in egg production. They could be in the beginning stages of a heat/stress-induced molt.  We'll track their condition the next few days.

Meanwhile, we've acquired a stray bantam rooster from the neighbor:
 

The stray

He doesn't contribute to egg production and the GC rooster doesn't seem to like him, but he is awfully cute.  :)

It's Fair Time!

We're finishing work on our entries for the Greene County Fair.  Brady will enter a couple of his stunning sky pictures and our first batch of Smith's Creek Farm honey.  I finished a UFO silk lace scarf last week and hopefully will have it blocked in time (thanks to Christie for the blocking wires!).  And finally, the girls will enter 2 dozen eggs - wouldn't it be cool to say we have award-winning farm fresh eggs?

UFO scarf (unblocked)

Garden Disaster

Despite our best efforts, the garden failed this year.  Our neighbor's garden also became a nest of sunburned weeds.  The county extension office said our spring floods washed all the nutrients from the topsoil.  Next year we will add a ton of fertilizer before planting.  But this year's bounty will never be - unless we try potatoes or some other fall-weather crop. 

What's Blooming

Weeds (lol)

Coming Up

Finish fair entries, hive inspection, business cards

Getting Hotter 'Round Here

Somehow I missed spring.

The weather went from cold & rain just a month ago to miserable heat & humidity.  I spent Friday night watering the garden with every intention of weeding on Saturday but couldn't bear the heat for long.  Brady's been climbing roofs on various animal jobs and suffering as well.  Last night it rained and today's a bit cooler so we might be able to get some things done outside tonight after all.  As I write this it's getting cloudy - we may be dodging a few raindrops in between chores.

We've had a few severe storms here the past couple weeks.  Like growing pains for the transition to summer. Brady's ready to chase a few tornadoes across the county.  :)

One of Brady's stunning sky pictures - May 25

The new egg business is off and running!  Amanda painted our lovely road sign and Brady & Cody built a sturdy frame for it.  Within a few hours of officially being "open for business" we made our first sale!  I even had a very nice gentleman stop by a few minutes ago looking for duck eggs.  Maybe he saw the geese in the back field. 

Our town has a month street fair on the first Friday of the month.  We're thinking about setting up a table to sell eggs and craft thingys.  Which means I need to get busy with the craft thingys.  I'm experimenting with a pink ribbon slipper but it may be too labor-intensive and costly for a craft thingy.  May switch to dishcloths instead.  Or regular slippers. 

What's Blooming

Roses and more roses, Black Locust, Honeysuckle

Coming Up

Trailer renovation, weed the garden, get business cards for egg/craft thingy sales, hive inspection

Works & Storms In Progress

Yep, the blog is going through a design change. The main content area was just too skinny for my liking.  So, I'm playing around with some layouts to find a best fit for the Smith's Creek Farm site.  We appreciate your patience during our construction phase.

Storm after storm after storm has tromped through our area the past week or so.  No damage at our place but Brady's truck took a beating during this week's hailstorm.  I quickly snapped this pic of our peonies before the winds took it away forever.  Wasn't so lucky with the snowball bush.

The 2011 garden is officially in the ground/mud.  Looks like we're experimenting with hydroponics, lol! If we can get anything to grow in this soupy Ohio soil it'll be a miracle.

While others celebrate (maybe "commemorate" is a better word) the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, we're staging our own reenactment right here on Smith's Creek Farm.  Our GC rooster has waged a vicious turf battle over the past couple weeks with our neighbor to the north's rooster.  Blood and feathers have been shed in this gruesome campaign but I think our rooster will be victorious in the end.

The GC hens are working overtime on egg production.  This weekend we'll set out our "eggs 4 sale" sign.  If the bees are overachievers like the hens, we'll need a "honey 4 sale" sign too.  Any good recipes that call for large quantities of eggs + honey?

Bee hive count is up to 10 as of this posting with more cutouts scheduled this week.  Should reach our max of 20 hives soon.

The throw from the last posting is finished!

Katy Daley posing with
the finished throw

Now if I could only get around to working on those original design patterns ....

What's Blooming

Peonies, Black Locust, Roses (I think they're heirloom roses - need to research this weekend), some strange purple flower in the back yard, Dame's Rocket

Coming Up

Finish blog design, continue hive construction, change out winter/summer clothes, start egg business

Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers

UFOs on the Farm

This afternoon my Blackberry went kaput with an ominous "JVM Error 102" message.  I suppose this is the smartphone equivalent of the Windows BSOD (blue screen of death).  Long story short - I'm writing this while my phone's OS gets updated.  I can restore my contacts but I'll probably lose my pictures.  For the record - this is the last picture taken with my BB:

I was thinking this afternoon of what knitters call UFOs (UnFinished Objects) - those projects that were put away for various reasons.  Most projects become UFOs when other projects demand our attention.  Such is the case with the couch throw project.  Despite my best intentions, I never found the time to finish the edging - things are crazy busy on the farm lately.  So it joins the fair isle sock project (complicated pattern), the silk lace scarf project (need more yarn) and the basic sock project (sheer boredom) in the UFO pile.

The fencing project has become a UFO victim of mother nature.  Last weekend Brady & I added the tension wire to the support posts so we can finish the last stretch of fence.  The back field is a mud bucket - we don't need the auger to dig post holes, we can scoop it out with our hands.  The garden is another UFO although Brady was able to get it tilled during a rare dry afternoon.  Most of the plants are in and I intended to finish the tomatoes and cucumbers today but - you guessed it - it rained.

Fortunately the bee project doesn't depend on the weather.  We now have 8 hives in the bee-yard.  As fast as we can build and paint hive boxes we put them to use.  The next batch will probably be light blue to match the barn.  :) 

The GC rangers are egg-laying machines!  Our combined egg intake is roughly 1 1/2 dozen eggs daily!  I should set up a stand on the road - "Farm Fresh Eggs for Sale".  Maybe I'll paint it light blue, too.

UPDATE:  The BB is fixed and all my pics saved (woo hoo!). 

What's Blooming

Mulberry (who knew we had mulberry trees in the back field), goldenrod, dogwoods

Coming Up

Finish the garden, beehive boxes, clean the chicken coop